'“I had no role models.” As a 20-something, Kim Jina’s idea of what a successful woman looked like came straight from “Sex and the City”
n the surface, there is little to distinguish the Woolf Social Club, wedged between a concrete flyover and a Harley Davidson outlet in an upmarket neighbourhood of Seoul, from any other hipster hangout. Customers perch on wooden stools at formica tables, tapping on laptops while they sip their coffee. Records ands line the walls; soft jazz trickles from speakers. On the white wall above the bar, in big black letters, is the statement: “More dignity, less bullshit”.
South Korea, even its trendy capital, is a difficult place to be a woman. The wage gap between the sexes is the highest in the rich world. Traditional expectations about gender roles, beauty standards and the way women should conduct themselves remain pervasive. “Misogyny surrounds you so naturally that you barely even notice it,” says Kim. “I had no role models, so my idea of how a successful woman should be came straight from ‘Sex and the City’.
The murder prompted South Korean women to come together, initially in online communities, and discuss how to fight back against sexism. Then they took to the streets. In 2018 there was a series of protests against the widespread practice of recording illegal footage of women by hiding small cameras in public toilets or changing rooms.
She didn’t win the election – without backing from a major party, it was always going to be a long shot. Oh Se-hoon, the conservative candidate, was voted in, partly thanks to support from young men: the protests in 2018 had provoked a backlash from men, who saw themselves as the victims of “reverse discrimination”.
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